By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Sept. 26, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

I am not the least bit surprised that Justice John Ajet-Nassam has been named as one of the 12 high court judges caught negotiating for payolas in exchange for compromising their sense of justice and fair play, as well as unconscionably corrupting their judicial professionalism. After all, was he not the same judge who informed Ghanaians and the rest of the world that Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome was duly entitled to the humongous sum of GHC 51.2 million, creamed off our public coffers with the criminal complicity of then-Attorney-General Betty “I Hate Being Known as an Ashanti” Mould Iddrisu and her deputy, Mr. Ebo Barton Oduro? What I am curious to learn about the man is how many judgment-debt cases he presided over, and the sort of predictable verdicts that Mr. Nassam returned on the same. Not that it would matter anyhow. I am simply curious.

A Daily Guide news report has Justice Ajet-Nassam crying foul and claiming that he was set up by investigative reporter and trained lawyer Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas. But the fact of the matter is that anybody can be set up for anything, only if there is proven evidence of a spot soft or a weakness for whatever such investigation or sting operation may be aiming for. For instance, politicians who are widely known to be illegal drug users and dealers have been set up for just such a snag and been netted and nailed and deservedly put away for quite a remarkable bit of time and for the collective good of society. A typical globally infamous case in point was the nabbing of longtime Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry, late, who was caught on videotape snorting cocaine in a DC hotel room with his paramour, or extramarital girlfriend, Ms. Rasheeda Moore. The latter had decided to collaborate with agents from the FBI – the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations – in exchange for immunity from prosecution, or some such deal.

Those intimate with the Mr. Barry, a former student civil rights activist, claimed to have since long before his arrest, indictment, prosecution, conviction and imprisonment noticed the rampant rhetorical and cognitive incoherence of the man. And yet, as was to be expected, when he had been confronted and questioned about his erratic deportment, Mayor Barry had vehemently denied any involvement and / or indulgence in such criminal activity and imputed the motive of his perceived detractors to abject racial prejudice. The administration of the world’s number one city – actually that accolade belongs to New York City – was precipitously going downhill, and yet the southern-born African-American politician and trained scientist and sometime professor of chemistry was behaving as if he had everything down pat.

In other words, lamely claiming or bitterly complaining that he had been set up only goes to show that, indeed, Justice Ajet-Nassam had been routinely perverting justice and the rule of law and scandalously getting away with the same, that is, until Mr. Anas and his Tiger-Eye PI team decided to spotlight the shenanigans of the culprit and some of his colleagues and associates. As I asked in a previous column of indicted Justice Paul U. Dery, if Justice Ajet-Nassam really believed he had done absolutely nothing wrong, then why would he have reportedly tendered his resignation to Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, shortly after Mr. Anas’ exposé came to light? Or was it was simply that in tendering his resignation to the Chief Justice, the man who insolently claims to have been set up expected to be facilely let off the hook? I am, of course, less interested in any answer that Mr. Ajet-Nassam may have for the preceding question, than the fact that finally justice seems to have caught up with him.

As for his pathetic face-saving complaint that his totally unrelated private and personal relationship with Prophet T. B. Joshua, the Nigerian-born head of the so-called Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), had been unfairly drawn into the fray, the man who exposed Mr. Ajet-Nassam for the crooked judge that he clearly appears to be may well have had a good reason for dredging up such an admittedly patently private aspect of his life. There may be a salient psychological dimension that has a significant bearing on the total personality of the embattled man of the bench. And it is, of course, all too natural to expect men and women caught in such epic act of judicial scam-artistry to kick and scream, even while fully aware of the fact that such an annoying behavior is only bound to further complicate matters for these hitherto envisaged symbols of judicial integrity and justice of the highest order.